


No Light No Light

by RedLeaderfic



Category: World Wrestling Entertainment
Genre: Jealousy, Kayfabe Compliant, Luke Is Handling Things Well, M/M, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, veiled threats
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-21
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:06:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RedLeaderfic/pseuds/RedLeaderfic
Summary: Luke and Randy tell stories to pass the time on a cold night.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [fingalsanteater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fingalsanteater/gifts).



> Tagged Bray/Randy because "Luke Harper Has Very Complicated Feelings About Bray Wyatt" is not yet an AO3 relationship tag. :D Happy Chocolate Box Day!

There was a specific path converts followed when entering the compound for the first time. The approach had to be on foot and the journey usually took two to three days, the path slightly different for each new member of the Family. Bray had told Luke once Abigail had shown him the way to bring Luke and Erick to her in his dreams. Privately Luke had hoped the summons for Orton would never come.

But no such luck.

Bray had led them to a ramshackle cabin to bed down for the night shortly after they crossed into Family territory, an hour or so past nightfall. There were no beds but that was part of the journey, anyone who couldn’t stand minor discomfort for a few nights wasn’t fit to join. Luke sat with his back to the door and let his mind wander back to his own initiate’s journey; he rarely let himself think about who he’d been before Bray remade him but those nights were a treasured memory. He’d been so full of doubt but Bray had spent nights talking him through his fears until the sun rose each morning. 

The hunter’s moon was bright enough for Luke to see without difficulty; Bray was fast asleep in the center of the room, his breathing deep and even. Bray always slept well back on home grounds, the worry of the outside world leaving him. Orton was stretched out beside him but Abigail’s peace hadn’t visited him the way it had Bray. Luke watched him toss and turn for most an hour, finally seeing him start awake. Orton glanced around for a second as if he didn’t remember where he was, letting out a long breath when he saw Bray and Luke. “Don’t you sleep?” he said, leaning up on one elbow.

Luke didn’t see the need to answer. The light caught Orton’s eye in an unnatural way as he shook his head. Luke didn’t know why he was the only one who ever seemed to notice that.

Orton lay on his back and blew on his hands. The night was cold for the time of year but not unbearably so. Or at least not to Luke. “So, what do you think about when you stay up all night like this?”

“I was remembering a story I heard a long time ago,” Luke said. Orton leaned back up, inclining his head as if inviting Luke to continue. “On his way home from the fields a farmer found a snake half frozen in his path.” Luke almost said viper instead of snake, the way he’d first heard the story told, but decided against it last minute. It seemed too on the nose. “The farmer took pity on the snake. Thought he could save it. So he bundled the snake into his shirt to warm it as he hurried home, but when he was halfway there the snake woke up. The snake bit the farmer and the poison went right to the man’s heart. Just before he died the man asked the snake, ‘Why did you do that? I was trying to save you.’ But the snake just answered, ‘What did you expect from me? A thank you?’”

Orton chuckled under his breath and sat crosslegged on the other side of Bray, blowing on his hands again. “I thought that would be the one you’d tell. I know a story about a farmer and a snake, too,” he said, toying with Bray’s hair. “In this one the farmer also finds the snake on his land, sunbathing in front of its burrow. Now the farmer’s first thought is to send the snake away but the snake is weary from being driven from burrow to burrow and knows it won’t find a new home before the frost comes. So it makes a deal with the farmer. It tells him, ‘Let me live on your lands and I promise you that your flocks will be safe. Bring me food to sustain me through the winter and you’ll be rewarded. We can be partners, the two of us.’

“So the farmer decides to take the risk. He brought food to the snake and returned at the end of the day and found the snake had placed a gold coin the bowl as payment. This happened day after day until the farmer found himself growing rich. As time went by the farmer and the snake even became friends. The snake had lived there a long time and gave the farmer tips on how to graze his flocks and plant his fields, and both were more fruitful than the farmer could ever have imagined.”

Luke couldn’t stop watching the way Bray’s hair slid between Orton’s fingers. “But the farmer also had a wife,” Orton continued. “And from the first day the wife could never bring herself to trust the snake. Every morning when the farmer went out she would tell him, ‘You know it’s going to turn on you. You should strike first.’ It didn’t matter how much their fortunes had improved, she couldn’t see past the hatred. Every night and every morning she told him, ‘You need to kill that snake.’”

Orton switched to tracing his fingertips along the tattoos down Bray’s arm. “So finally, to keep the peace, the farmer agreed. One morning he took his axe and left early, seeking to surprise the snake as it slept in the morning sun but it’s hard to tell when a snake is asleep and when it’s awake. The snake saw the man coming and knew it had been betrayed, moving at the last instant so the axe strike only split the rock at the entrance of its burrow. That night the snake slithered into the man’s house and killed the wife, killed his horse, killed his prized oxen, the sheep he was bringing to market. Each night the snake came back and the farmer woke up to more death, until finally facing ruin the man came to the burrow with his hat in his hands. ‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘Let’s go back to the way things were.’

“But the snake only said, ‘I trusted your word once before and look where that got us. Why would I ever make that mistake again?’ And so the farmer could only watch as the snake took everything from him, one by one.”

The silence when Orton finished made the room feel so much smaller. Luke wondered which snake he was looking at right now. He didn’t know if they were too far into story for it to matter whether the stories even featured two different snakes at all

Bray chose that moment to stir, rubbing both hands over his face. “Are you two getting along?” he asked when he realized he’d been the only one sleeping. 

Orton smiled, the dim light bringing out the angles of his face. “Getting along just fine,” Orton said, lying down on his side next to Bray close enough to leech body heat. “We were telling stories.”

“That’s what I want to hear.” Luke watched Orton whisper something to Bray, lips close to Bray’s ear. Whatever it was made Bray laugh; Luke couldn’t hear Bray’s response either and he was ashamed of the sick panic that rushed through him at not being able to make out what they were saying to each other. Bray laughed again at something Orton said; he reached over and draped his long coat over Orton before settling back on the floor. Luke found himself staring at the protective way Bray’s arm crooked around Orton’s neck, how casually Orton draped his right leg across Bray’s leg. “Luke, are you sitting guard over us?” Bray said, sleep blurring the edges of his words again. Luke didn’t have to respond. “You know there’s no need. Nothing from the outside can hurt us in here.” 

Luke watched Orton’s lips curl up at that, the moonlight catching his eyes in that odd way again. He felt that helpless panic from before wash through him as he watched them fall asleep, first Bray and then Orton, his arm curled across Bray’s chest. Outside dangers weren’t what kept Luke up at night anymore.

They set out again at dawn, Bray coming up from behind and surprising Luke as he stared at the horizon where he knew the rest of the compound waited for them. “Are you looking forward to being home?” Bray said. “We’ve been away a long time.”

Luke wished he could lose himself in the enthusiasm in Bray’s voice the way he had so many times in the past. Instead his eyes fell on Randy Orton stretching the soreness out of his neck and shoulders, the queasy pit in his stomach only deepening when Bray broke off to talk to Orton, probably about the path they were to take. When Bray had them move, his hand at the small of Orton’s back, Luke forced himself to follow, unformed dread making his steps heavy. The sun was cold and the road was long and for the first time he could remember Luke knew he would no shelter to be found here.


End file.
